Bag of Randomness for Friday, January 11, 2019

I still don’t know if someone at my alma mater, Hardin-Simmons University, has been pulling a joke on me for years or if there’s a “glitch” in their system which needs fixing. Years ago, they use to send “future alumni” recruiting stuff addressed to my (now dearly departed) dog, Tuna. So, we’d get mail addressed to “Tuna Geeding” inviting him to children activities. This week, I received an invite to play in an alumni basketball game and to make an appearance at another game to be honored at halftime. Here’s the thing, I never played college sports other than intramurals. It’s not the first time I’ve received stuff about being a former HSU basketball player, but that stuff is fun showing to my college friends and me making up stories of games and practices which never happened.

Those AT&T “Just OK is not OK” commercials crack me up, especially the one with the tattoo artist who says, “Stay in your lane, bro.” And do you know who needs to stay in his lane? That blogging lawyer over in Wise County. As of late, he’s been blogging about Nixon’s treasonous actions with North Vietnam. Hey, I’m the local blogger who writes about presidential history and trivia. You don’t see me making posts about random courthouse or legal items or female teachers getting in trouble for having inappropriate relationships with minors. You know why, because I stay in my own darn lane, that’s why.

I did write about my discovery of Nixon sabotaging the Vietnam War peace talks two years ago today, of all days. The Wise County lawyer claims Nixon’s actions didn’t come to light until 2016, but that’s as misleading as anything coming out of the mouth of the current White House press secretary. In my post, I included this 2013 BBC article about the last batch of LBJ tapes being declassified in which he states Nixon “has blood on his hands.” It does an excellent job describing Nixon’s treason and how LBJ flirted with the idea of landing Marine One on top of a Chicago hotel to avoid war protestors and entering the 1968 Democratic Convention to re-join the presidential race. As for why LBJ didn’t expose Nixon:

Johnson felt it was the ultimate expression of political hypocrisy but in calls recorded with Clifford they express the fear that going public would require revealing the FBI were bugging the ambassador’s phone and the National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting his communications with Saigon. So they decided to say nothing.

That Wise County lawyer also recently mentioned Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. About a month ago, I noticed they moved their headquarters less than a half-mile away from GeedingManor. They put a big fancy sign on the side of a nearby office building.

It’s become a thing for former presidents and their wives to be buried on the grounds of their libraries. However, George W and Laura. Bush will be buried in Austin at the Texas State Cemetery. The Carters will be buried in Plains, GA instead of Atlanta, where his library is located. As far as I know, the Clintons, Obamas, and Trumps haven’t made their intentions of a final rest place public.

The Dallas Morning News recently had a large layoff, which included Eddie Sefko who covered the Dallas Mavericks. I thought it was cool of Dirk to acknowledge it and wish him well on Twitter. I also thought it was cool and classy of Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle ending a post came media conference by saying, “I miss @ESefko very badly. He’s a man of the highest integrity. That’s a great man and I just want to say it’s a privilege to work along side him the last 11 years and I’ll miss him very much.”

Dak Prescott’s first name is actually Rayne, his middle name is Dakota.

It’s the 20th anniversary of The SopranosHBO’s Twitter account. I’ve yet to watch an episode. To mark the occasion, they asked people to submit their first names and they would respond with a Soprano-like nickname. A plethora of celebrities and companies participated and it was really fun reading the banter.

This quote from the CEO of my company really stuck with me. I’ve thought about how people always try to interpret things like body language, silence, facial expression, and such, but the way she phrased it got me to thinking about it differently. Probably because she leads a small government contracting company and she and the executives are doing what they can to make sure no one has to go without a paycheck, she realizes how silence or the lack of communication can be interpreted into a slew of good and bad things. So far, I think she and her leadership team are doing a great job at being transparent and communicating.

One thing is for certain, human beings are “meaning-making” machines and will make meaning out of silence, miscommunication, or communication gaps.

In the summer, the sun never sets at the South Pole. This what a full day looks like.

I follow a couple of Dave Campbell’s writers on Twitter and they are easily in the top 5 of the most interesting and entertaining people I follow.

I was impressed with the outpouring of support for people let go from the DMN earlier this week. It’s a tough time in general to be in the news business.

You should give The Sopranos a shot. Of all of the critically acclaimed shows, it seems to be the one that takes the most grief (some hated the ending, some weren’t happy with the way story lines were or were not resolved), but it might be my favorite. I love the genre of “bad guy protagonists” – Vic Mackey, Walter White, Don Draper – and I’ve always thought that Tony Soprano was the most interesting. It has an strange arc because I always felt it peaked high in the first two seasons, fell off some in the next two and then hit the gas without slowing down for the last two. From the music to the brilliant use of symbolism to the way they use his interaction with a therapist to peel back the layers of the main character, the show rarely disappointed me.

I follow Michael Beschloss on Twitter; he posts excellent historical information and memorabilia, a lot of which is presidential. Anyway, he just posted that this week marks the anniversary of three momentous events: inauguration of Richard Nixon, death of LBJ, and Roe v. Wade decision. They all occurred within a week of each other. Amazing.

Re: final resting places – I understand that trump has announced his burial site…it’s somewhere in New Jersey, I think, and he’s been selling off burial plots in close proximity to his…wouldn’t you know. Wouldn’t be surprised if he made Melania pay for her own plot…

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